Emma Pillsbury
Emma Pillsbury is the school's mysophobic guidance counselor who has unrequited feelings for Will. She is played by Jayma Mays. Biography Emma is the guidance counselor at William McKinley High. When she was younger, her brother pushed her into a runoff lagoon at a dairy farm, thus resulting in her mysophobia. Season One In the episode Pilot, we first learn that she has feelings for Will Schuester. He sits with her at lunch. He helps her get gum off of her shoe and she gives him advice to get some of the popular kids to join Glee Club so that the rest would fall right in. She signs up to chaperone with Will to go see the Glee Club's competition, Vocal Adrenaline. At the event, they share a peanut butter sandwich. Once she learns that Will is resigning because his wife is pregnant she makes a meeting with him to give him some advice. He thinks that he needs better financial benefits for his family but Emma shows him a video of himself in the 1993 Glee Club Nationals and tells him that the only life worth living is one he is really passionate about. In Showmance, Emma catches Rachel trying to throw up in the bathroom. Rachel wants to be thinner and prettier like Quinn Fabray. Rachel asks her if she's ever liked a guy so much that it makes her cry and, although she doesn't tell Rachel exactly, she knows this feeling oh too well. A clip plays, showing Emma remembering sitting in her car crying, with mascara dripping down her face. It is not said that she is crying over Will, but it is assumed. Later, Emma runs into Will during his janitorial shift. While she helps him clean, Emma confides that a childhood incident has left her hating messes. He helps her work through it by intimately putting chalk on her nose and the two nearly kiss. Football coach Ken Tanaka sees the whole thing through the window. Ken confronts her about this and tells her that she should stop chasing a married guy. He tells her that he is a good man for her and that she won't do much better than him in their town. Emma is convinced by this and tries to put a stop to her and Will's flirtations because he is married with a baby on the way and she is dating Ken now. Later Terri tells Will that she is expecting a boy once she is in fact not actually pregnant. In Acafellas, Emma is dating Ken, and supports him in the Acafellas shows. According to Terri, she looks at Will a lot during the shows. Once members of the Acafellas begin to quit, Will is dismayed and is convinced that it's over. Emma advises him not to give up so easily. In Preggers, she discusses with Will and Ken the fact Sue Sylvester now has her own segment ("Sue's Corner") on one of the local TV news broadcasts. Emma and Will sit next to each other during the football game and when the team scores a touchdown they embrace in a celebratory hug, which they pull away from each other self conciously. In The Rhodes Not Taken, Will tells Emma about Quinn's pregnancy. Without revealing her knowledge of Quinn's situ ation, Emma takes a special in interest in Finn's future and suggests he try for a music scholarship. Performing well in the sectional and regional competitions may help drum up college interest, she tells him, and she suggests trying to bring Rachel back to Glee. She later helps Will find April Rhodes by looking up her transcripts. Emma, who never agreed with Will's idea, is vomited on by a drunken Kurt. She warns Will that April is a bad influence on the kids. She is upset with him because he lets April go on stage at the Invitationals even though she is drunk. In Vitamin D, Will decides to have the boys face the girls in a mash-up competition, with Emma being the "celebrity judge". Sue warns Terri of Emma and Will's attraction and Terri becomes the school nurse to keep an eye on him. She is reminded of the mutual attraction once again, this time from Ken and she tells him to propose to her. She sees Emma and Will discussing the proposal in the hallway and she confronts Emma telling her that she has no chance with Will. Emma tells Terri that Will deserves better than her. Terri then says that her thinking that she is competing for Will's affection is pointless and that she should marry Ken Tanaka. Emma tells Will that she has accepted Ken's proposal and although he tries to be happy for her, he is ultimately upset and the two share a heartbreaking stare from across the hall. In Mash-Up, Ken and Emma ask Will to help them with the first dance song at their wedding. Emma wants "I Could Have Danced All Night" and Ken wants "The Thong Song." They ask Will to make a mash-up up of the songs and teach Emma how to dance. She also gives advice on how to be popular to Finn and Quinn. During Emma's first dance lesson with Will he performs Ken's choice, "The Thong Song", while dancing around her. He ends up slipping on the train of her overwhelming wedding dress that she wore to the lesson and pulls her on top of him. Ken sees this and gets very jealous. Later, Will goes with Emma as she picks out a new wedding gown. He sees her and is as love-struck as ever. They waltz together to see if she can dance in it while Emma sings her choice of "I Could've Danced All Night" and their attraction is strongly evident once more. In the end Will tells her that he can't get the songs to go together and Emma agrees that the songs are good songs but are just too different, like herself and Ken. In Ballad, she gives Will advice, after he realizes Rachel had a crush on him, he tells her the story of Suzy Pepper. Emma suggests that Will should let Rachel down easy with a song. With Emma in the room, Will sings a mash-up of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Young Girl." Instead of listening to the lyrics, Rachel stares star-struck at Will, as does Emma. In Hairography, Will asks Emma for advice, because he thinks Sue was leaking his competitive set lists to other schools. Emma suggests going directly to the competing schools to find out. In Mattress she tells Will her wedding will be the following Saturday, on the same day as sectionals. Later, Will asks Emma how to find another kid to be in the picture. She apologizes for having to miss sectionals, and Will thinks Ken scheduled the wedding conflict on purpose. Emma defends Ken and Will ends up apologizing. In Sectionals, she is the new Glee director, replacing Will, so she has moved back her wedding by a few hours to be able to take the kids to sectionals. Ken did not take it very well but Will is happy. After they see the Jane Addams Academy, she and the rest of the club freak out and she calls Will. She later confronts Grace Hitchens and Dalton Rumba and calls both of them out for cheating. Will goes to the wedding and finds Emma sitting alone. Ken has dumped her, saying moving the wedding for sectionals was the last straw. She admits that she moved the wedding for Will and not the kids. She tells him that she has emailed her resignation to Figgins because she doesn't want to be at the school anymore as she is ashamed of her actions towards Ken and heartbroken over Will. He grabs her arm and tells her that he has just left his wife but Emma feels it's too soon for him to move on. He tells her that she makes a beautiful bride in which she responds with a teary "Thank you.'' On the day of her resignation Will realizes that he can't let Emma go and he runs to her office, which is empty. He spots her across the hallway with a box of her belongings just as she is about to leave. He stops her and kisses her for the first time.'' In Hell-O we find that Emma has not resigned. She is first seen in her office with Will and he points out that it's weird how they've been in the exact situation before except now he can kiss her if he wants to. He leans in to kiss her but she stops him and says she needs to clean up. He tells her that he doesn't care because they've kissed before. Emma apologizes for the unattractive quality of her mysophobia. Will tells her that she is adorable and that she is right; they need to clean up before they can begin a realtionship. He suggests a date at his place and she accepts. Later they are slow dancing in Will's living room to Neil Diamond's "Hello Again". Will tells her that it's the perfect song for them and Emma says she loves it. They kiss sweetly before falling on to the couch kissing in an almost passionate manner. Emma breaks away saying that it's too much too fast for her. She confesses that she is a virgin because she hasn't found anyone who won't reject her when things get hard with her problems. Will's reaction to this news is bordering on upset but he tells her its okay. She doesn't believe him and starts to cry. He grabs her shoulders and tells her that he understands. He kisses her forehead and goes to put in a movie. In between here, Will makes out with Vocal Adrenaline coach Shelby Corcoran and Emma is unaware of this. Several days later Emma is making Will a surprise dinner at his house when Terri comes by to pick up the rest of her dvds. The two have a bit of a confrontation and Terri goes into the living room and finds Emma's copy of "The Jazz Singer". Emma tells Terri that Will picked "Hello" as their song. Terri tells Emma not to bother sleeping with Will as she is already screwed; "Hello" was her and Will's prom song. Emma is in denial so Terri tells her to look it up in that year's Thunderclap.The next day Will is in Emma's office looking at some of her books when she walks in. She hands him the yearbook that she has just gotten from the library and tells him to turn to the page of the prom. He notices what she is pointing out and says that he has no memories from that night and he didn't even remember the song. Emma tells him that he still does subconciously. She is on the verge of tears as she tells him that he needs to spend time alone and discover who he is by himself. He plays with a lock of her hair and tells her that she is right. They agree to put their relationship on hold until Will can straighten himself out. She asks him to leave so that she can cry and he does so with a pained expression. Later, Will is watching the Glee Club perform "Hello, Goodbye" but is distracted, clearly thinking of Emma. At the same time, Emma appears in the auditorium on the flight above him and watches him during the performance. In The Power of Madonna Sue tells her that she is not worthy of listening to The Madonna Songs because she doesn't have the confidence to take control of her of her body and sex appeal like Madonna. So she goes up to Will and tells him that they are going to have sex on friday at eight where they sing Like a Virgin with Rachel and Jesse and Finn and Santana. They end up not having sex because she wasn't ready, But the only one who does have sex is Santana and Finn. Personality Emma could easily be seen as the ideal counselor. Sweet, insightful, selfless and empathic, Emma is constantly doing what she can to offer good and helpful advise to not only the students, but also to those that she cares about (primarily Will). Unfortunately, despite the fact that Emma tries her best to be logical in her advise, she often lets her emotions take advantage of her actions. Her relationships with Will and Ken are obvious example, as Emma not only began dating, but also agreed to get engaged to him, although she did not even like, all so as to try and spare herself the pain of pining for Will. Because of Emma's natural kindness, this has also caused her to become extremely meek towards dominate people such as Sue and Terri, who often attempt to bully her. However, when push comes to shove, Emma will still TRY to stand up for herself, and will without a question stand-up for others. Although Emma seems pretty normal at first glance, like everyone else at the school she has her own sorts of oddities. Most obvious is her germaphobia and OCD. She tries her best to make sure everything around her is neat, hygienic and in order. She always brings her lunch to work, and often will clean her food as she eats it. Emma also has, what some might consider, an unhealthy romantic interest Will. Despite the fact he's married, she often was seen watching him intently, to the point where she would become easily distracted. As previously mentioned, she attempted to cancel out her feelings for Will, by dating a man who was completely wrong for her. This also caused her to become very inconsiderate towards Ken, who she informed that despite dating/engaged, they would not live together, kiss or have anything remotely close to a normal relationship. She reacted maturely to Will telling her that he left his wife although her decision to resign showed her emotional weakness as she didn't want to work at the school any longer because of her feelings for Will and her guilt over Ken. Love Interests Ken Tanaka Main article: Emma-Ken Relationship Ken Tanaka has pursued Emma for a while, they eventually start dating. In the episode Vitamin D Ken proposes to her and she says yes as long as they don't move in together and don't see each other after school hours. In the episode Sectionals, Ken ends up dumping her because she moved their wedding back a few hours to take the glee club to Sectionals for Will, which made him realize that he could not do anything to prevent the fact that she loved Will and not him. Will Schuester Main article: Emma-Will Relationship Emma has been nursing a crush on Will for apparently sometime now, which often causes her to become easily distracted. It is implied that Will himself shares an attraction towards Emma in Showmance, but has never acted on it out of respect and love for his wife Terri Schuester. However, Will often comes to Emma for advise on all his personal problems which only strengthens their mutual attraction. Much to Emma's disdain and Will's slight disappointment, Emma began dating and then became engaged to Will's friend Ken Tanaka. Despite the fact they are technically 'together' Emma refuses to do anything with Ken such as hugging, kissing, or even living together, implying that she is still hoping for Will to be with her. Will's wife Terri, meanwhile is aware of the mutual attraction and once confronted Emma about it. In a moment of uncharacteristic forcefulness, Emma told Terri that she was not good enough for Will. In the episode Sectionals, Ken dumps Emma and leaves her at their wedding. She tells Will when he arrives, along with the fact that she will be resigning as counselor at McKinley. He tells her he left his wife, and at the end of the episode, Will and Emma share a long-awaited kiss in the hallway, just before Emma is about to leave. Quotes Category:Characters Category:Staff Category:Main characters Category:Disabled Characters